Conversations From the Professional Front Lines

[Raw Shark]

DRUNK LEFTIST: Yeah, I agree with everything you're saying, I just don't think that Sanders has the name recognition value to win the general election, and Clinton does. Trust me on this, Bro, I know a lot about politics.

YOUR DRIVER: Maybe he's not a household name right now, but he sure as fuck will be if he takes New Hampshire, and he's leading by nine points there right now.

DRUNK LEFTIST: New Hampshire? Why would anybody give a fuck about New Hampshire?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Correction: Ignorant Drunk Leftist

[Raw Shark]

Seriously. The people who agree with me the most make me want to facepalm almost as often as the opposition.

[Broomstick]

She was trying to get me to knock off work early and go to a strip club with her and her friends on a day when I really couldn't afford to. Also, kind of a lousy tipper.

Sounds like she was offering to tip you with sex, which is not my definition of a bad tip unless there was a non-negligible risk of coming away with the clap.

The problem with sex as a tip is that it doesn't count as rent money. I know my landlord does not accept sex in lieu of rent, I suspect most don't. Sex might be fun, but it's not negotiable tender.

[Venator]

She was trying to get me to knock off work early and go to a strip club with her and her friends on a day when I really couldn't afford to. Also, kind of a lousy tipper.

Sounds like she was offering to tip you with sex, which is not my definition of a bad tip unless there was a non-negligible risk of coming away with the clap.

The problem with sex as a tip is that it doesn't count as rent money. I know my landlord does not accept sex in lieu of rent, I suspect most don't. Sex might be fun, but it's not negotiable tender.

Unless you're a bonobo.

[Raw Shark]

That scenario would also require that my landlady was, at least temporarily, a bonobo.

[Lagmonster]

The problem with sex as a tip is that it doesn't count as rent money. I know my landlord does not accept sex in lieu of rent, I suspect most don't. Sex might be fun, but it's not negotiable tender.

I would wager just about anything that there are many people on earth who could quite easily offer sex in place of money to directly secure goods and services, mind. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's kind of a basis for several professions and industries.

[Raw Shark]

The problem with sex as a tip is that it doesn't count as rent money. I know my landlord does not accept sex in lieu of rent, I suspect most don't. Sex might be fun, but it's not negotiable tender.

I would wager just about anything that there are many people on earth who could quite easily offer sex in place of money to directly secure goods and services, mind. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's kind of a basis for several professions and industries.

Sure, it's just a matter of one's selling point. I could probably live quite comfortably as [Hedonism Bot]'s concubine, but... Eww.

My landlady is, however, old, happily married, and not a bonobo, so I'm pretty sure that's not going to work for me.

[Raw Shark]

YOUR DRIVER: [on the phone] They're telling me that you're at 1525 Lawrence Street, is that correct?

DRUNK LADY: No, it's 1525 Florence Street, like Florence Italy. I told them that on the phone.

YOUR DRIVER: Geography is way too sophisticated for Dispatch. You need to call them back and tell them Florence with an F, or better yet, download our app.

DRUNK LADY: Are you serious!? Why don't you just come get me!?

YOUR DRIVER: I'm not even in the same city. Your wait will be shorter if you call back.

DRUNK LADY: This is bullshit! I'm calling Uber!

YOUR DRIVER: [facepalm]

[TheFeniX]

Boss: "My computer has viruses. Come fix it."
Me: "What did you install?"
Boss: "Nothing."
::horribly obtuse pop-ups, ads inserted into pages, all kinds of just really 'people who make shit like this are why I support the death penalty' kind of stuff.
Me: "TerasGames."
Boss: "Yea, I installed that."
Me: "Why... why the Hell would you install that? If you want shitty video games, I'd rather find them for you than deal with this. Stop installing stuff from vendors you can't immediately recognize the name of."
Boss: "Like what?"
Me: "Seriously? Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, that kind of stuff. Not "Bob's Meatmarket and Video Games LLC."
I had to boot into safe mode and clean it manually it's such a shitty piece of adware. They always install shit. They either lie or don't remember. Quit installing shit on your work PC, that's my god damn job. I don't mind that people fuck this shit up, but quit fucking acting like this is my fault. When you get big red pop-ups from our AV/Ad-aware system and you click "ok" anyways...... why did I even spend the time and money on this shit?

On top of this, both server System drives (a mirror) are throwing SMART errors, so I have two being overnighted and plan to work late to hopefully fix that. My image backups are current so I'm not freaking out, but I'm still sort-of freaking out. Normally, I'd reboot and check the RAID status, but I'm just leaving this bastard up until I can load one of these new Hot drives and mirror it outright. It's also about time to replace the server anyways, so I've got one on order.

My laptop dealt with some stupid ASUS thing with the Hybrid Intel/Nvidia graphics setup when I swapped a SSD in it. Was beating on that for hours and my home PC just flat-out needs a reinstall since the new MB and that old adware hit I took when I was drunk and stupid (see, even I do shit like that BUT IT'S ON MY HOME PC, not my fucking work computer).

Even on top of that, our Metro Ethernet upgrade isn't giving me the 30/30 except when I'm plugged into the 1841 LAN port. I get 8 up otherwise. The port won't auto-negotiate Full Duplex. I think that has something to do with it. Since we no longer have a T1 and it's basically just acting as an Ethernet router, I'm just going to pull it and buy something retail like an Linksys (cut-rate Cisco, or maybe an ASUS) Ethernet router/firewall since we also only do VPN as any kind of advanced config. Problem is getting the WAN IP information from my ISP and they haven't called me back.

This is SORT of relevant because trying to explain why we need to (after like 6 years) actually replace some hardware to these people is next to impossible. The term "Full Duplex" is probably some kind of fancy apartment to them.

[Edi]

Why do these bozos even have admin access to their work computers in the first place?

By the way, that network card not negotiating full duplex with the router, check a couple of things: First, what model network card on your computer (I'm suspecting Realtek), and second, what vendor's chipset on the modem/router? My bet's on Broadcom for that latter. We just recently discovered an issue with faulty Broadcom firmware code that caused an instant autonegotiation fail with Realtek network cards. It was due to issues cropping up with a particular vendor's modems and our hardware boss lit a fire under their ass and threw some gasoline on it and when they looked into it, it was a Broadcom chipset code bug, not the modem vendor's own code. Given Broadcom is only the largest chipset vendor in the world, somebody in there is shitting bricks right now since more probably than not it's a worldwide issue for anything using that particular chipset (no, I don't know what exact chipset it is).

If it's that, configuring your computer's network card for 100 Mbps half duplex may get more speed out of the currently 8 Mbps ports. And the only real fix is a firmware update, assuming one exists.

As far as the typical stuff I get:

CUSTOMER: "I bought a new modem and now my internet doesn't work!"
ME: *checks line* "The modem is up and online, so everything is in order. Do you have wired or wireless?"
CUSTOMER: "Wireless of course!"
ME: "Well, you need to connect your computer to the wireless network on that device and then it will work!"
CUSTOMER: "I don't know how!"
ME: "Well, we have onsite support too, at the price of X for showing up and Y per hour after that and they can probably sort your problem out in about half an hour or so [half an hour is standard amount of work]. Do you want that?"
CUSTOMER: "No, I won't pay anything, I demand that you fix this immediately! It's your internet connection and I'm a paying customer!"
ME: "I'm sorry, but the line is up and the internet connection is stable to your modem, so we have fulfilled our end of the contract. Customer equipment and its configuration are the customer's responsibility, but we have the premium tech support for that very reason."
CUSTOMER: "This is outrageous! It's your connection and your responsibility and I demand-"
ME: "You bought third party stuff from a company in no way affiliated with us and it's our responsibility? Tell me, if you bought a new car to replace the old one and then drove it until the tank was empty, is it the responsibility of the company that sold you the first car to fill up your tank for you?"
CUSTOMER: "FIX THIS RIGHT NOW! Or I'm going to complain and demand compensation! I'll terminate all of my subscriptions and then you'll see!""
ME: "It is your right to get support from whichever party you want to use, but our company is not obligated to take care of your equipment for free. You must do as you see fit."
CUSTOMER: "Look you asshole-"
ME: "Thank you for calling and have a nice day!" *click*

Yeah, good luck with that complaint. You'll be politely told to shove it. Fortunately these idiots are rare compared to the overall customer volume. For whatever reason, people over here seem to be of the opinion that it's their tekeoperator's job to fix all of their IT problems for them and naturally for free. Which just ain't happening. If the service works up to the customer premises, that's done and dusted and everything else is on the customer, unless of course it's equipment we sold that has broken and is still under warranty. In which case it gets replaced. We still won't configure it for them for free.

[TheFeniX]

Why do these bozos even have admin access to their work computers in the first place?

Because he threw a shit-fit years ago when I was on-site and he needed some EPA bullshit installed. Same with the rest. Even back when they were merely Power Users, they'd still find ways to mess everything up. I just gave them local admin, then chastise them when they fuck up and blame me. Honestly, besides one coworker who just won't stop installing shitty flash games and adware, then cry like a bitch about "muh 'puter is slow," they rarely have issues.

By the way, that network card not negotiating full duplex with the router, check a couple of things: First, what model network card on your computer (I'm suspecting Realtek), and second, what vendor's chipset on the modem/router? My bet's on Broadcom for that latter. We just recently discovered an issue with faulty Broadcom firmware code that caused an instant autonegotiation fail with Realtek network cards. It was due to issues cropping up with a particular vendor's modems and our hardware boss lit a fire under their ass and threw some gasoline on it and when they looked into it, it was a Broadcom chipset code bug, not the modem vendor's own code. Given Broadcom is only the largest chipset vendor in the world, somebody in there is shitting bricks right now since more probably than not it's a worldwide issue for anything using that particular chipset (no, I don't know what exact chipset it is).

The Cisco 1841 won't auto-negotiate FD with any of my switches and the FD light stays on 100% of the time. Don't know if that's by design or a bug, I don't work with many Cisco devices anymore. Either way, time to retire it.

[Kanastrous]

Several years back at a wrap party Jerry Bruckheimer's assistant was dreamily going on about her beloved cocker-spaniel/maltese and I had had just enough to drink that it seemed clever to ask if a cocker spaniel plus a maltese yields a cocktease.

[Raw Shark]

My personal favorite actual dog cross-breed name is the Shih-Poo. What can I say? I'm 37 going on 12.

~~~~~~~~~~~

DRUNK GIRL #1: Paige, you just need to get over Grant. He does not love you. You broke up with him a year ago, and you just need to let it go.

DRUNK GIRL #2: You are never going to get over him if you keep fucking him. You should fuck Lionel. Lionel LOVES you!

DRUNK GIRL #1: He always talks about you!

PAIGE: But I don't want to fuck Lionel, and I love Grant....

DRUNK Girl #2: No you don't! And Grant doesn't love you! He's a douche!

DRUNK GIRL #1: I cried with you when Grant broke your heart! I cried because you were crying, and I don't want to see you do that to yourself again!

DRUNK GIRL #2: We all cried together!

DRUNK GUY: Hey, Buddy? I'm going to double your tip if you say anything that gets my mind off this high school bullshit right now.

YOUR DRIVER: Um. How many hippies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

DRUNK GUY: How many?

YOUR DRIVER: Hippies don't screw in light bulbs, they screw in vans and tents and shit.

DRUNK GUY: [laughs!] Perfect! Keep it coming.

DRUNK GIRL #1: You need to ask Grant the questions, and figure out what you are doing, or you're never going to know!

PAIGE: You can't just label some things...

DRUNK GIRL #2: Yes I can! I can and will label shit!

YOUR DRIVER: I can and will label shit. Shit will be categorized and quantified.

DRUNK GUY: [laughs!] Your tip is still going up.

YOUR DRIVER: So, check this out: I'm pretty much the Grant to my last ex right now, and she's out drinking with her girlfriends tonight. There is a strong probability that she is having this exact conversation about me with them this very minute.

DRUNK GUY: [laughs harder!] This is exactly what I need, thanks. Just drown this shit out.

DRUNK GIRL #1: What's the matter, Steve? I thought you wanted to hang out and smoke pot with us!?

DRUNK GUY: Yeah, to hang out and smoke pot, not to join the Sisterhood of the Traveling Fucking Pants...

[Enigma]

My favorite dog cross breed is when you mix a Bulldog with a Shitzu.

[TheFeniX]

Boss: "What's that?"
Me: "A screwdriver."
Boss: "Why is it stuck in the old server."
Me: "It's holding the harddrive in place while I pull files to replace the corrupted invoice summary."
Boss: "Is that going to hurt anything?"
Me: "Eh.... probably not. I wouldn't touch it though."
Boss: "I thought we had a backup drive."
Me: "We did, it failed."
Boss: "So, this is your professional solution?"
Me: "Don't question my methods."

I have another backup, but the version of the file I needed was a week old and I had just updated the summary like... Wednesday. So, forget all that.

[Venator]

My personal favorite actual dog cross-breed name is the Shih-Poo. What can I say? I'm 37 going on 12.

We own one. She's as lovably dumb as some of your strippers.

[Broomstick]

I currently work in a large retail store in the "health, beauty, and cosmetics" department, which means part of my small domain is over-the-counter drugs, vitamins, and food supplements.

I am limited to basically helping people find what they're already looking for on the shelf.

I can not make recommendations as to which item to buy. First of all, I'm not you, I don't know what you need/like/whatever. Second, you can make your own decisions. Third, liability. If I recommend something and you have a bad reaction to it, or your kid does, you can sue us and we don't want that (that actually has happened to my employer). In other words, I am not your doctor or pharmacist, I am in not way capable of diagnosing what ails you or recommending what you should buy.

Yet on a daily basis someone will ask me "which of these should I buy?" or "what do you recommend for X?" To the latter, I have two stock replies, depending on the question. either "ask the pharmacist" or "ask your doctor".

Look, if you tell me you have foot fungus I can direct you to the foot fungus medications. Please do not take off your shoes and socks, show me your gnarly toes, and ask me "is this foot fungus?" How the hell should I know? Unless you have actual mushrooms or slime mold between your toes I have no way to know what the problem is. Thank god no one has asked me to diagnose jock itch or vaginal discharge (yet).

Do not attempt to flatter me with "since you work here you must know a lot about medical things". No, I don't. This job could be done by a high school drop-out who can manage to get their ass to work on time on a regular basis and has minimal reading skills. Being slightly better educated than that helps, I mean, it's more confidence inspiring when I can correctly pronounce the names of various items without laboriously sounding out the letters. There are no medical knowledge requirements for this job. I need to be able to lift up to 40 pounds repeated during a shift and stay on my feet for 8 hours without collapsing. That's about it. Oh, and be on time to work. And be nice to the customers, even if they're idiots or evil or both. The last bit is probably the hardest part of the job.

Do not ask me to pick out a hair dye for you. Especially after a five minute rant on what an idiot your hair stylist was for choosing your current color. Such a question is even more frightening if you know that I'm colorblind, not that I usually share that.

The other annoying this is when I'm talking to a customer and another customer comes up and starts going on about how evil our vitamins/supplements are, they're made out of GMO's and chemicals and whatever, and tells the person to go to a particular "health food store" (ever notice how "health food stores" usually contain little to no actual food, just pills and powders?) because our selections are "poison". Seriously, who goes up to random strangers and starts prescribing a regimen of supplements? Generally middle-aged to elderly white ladies who call everyone "honey" and "dear" based on an admittedly non-scientific random sampling.

Also fun are the gentlemen who want me to select a condom for them. There was also the guy who kept asking if we had any "really big" condoms, because, you know, he had fitting problems. I resisted the urge to send him to the aisle with the contractor-grade garbage bags.

Please do not go into details about the problems of incontinent relatives. I will gladly take you to the aisle with appropriate products but do not need a blow-by-blow of any bodily waste accidents.

It is absolutely hilarious when I'm asked to locate something and say "I'm sorry, we do not carry Badger Hair and Shredded Wheat All Natural Bulk Forming Fiber Supplement and Stool Softener brand, but we do have other items in our digestive health section" and they go running to the pharmacist... who then turns and asks me if we carry it and if so where it might be? Look, the pharmacists spend all day in their little fiefdom behind the counter. They dispense medications, warn you of possible interactions, and have some limited ability to recommend things. A couple are authorized to give vaccinations. That's it. I'm the one who actually stocks the shelves (well, one of those folks, we have several doing the job in this 24/7 store). I'm the one who has some idea of where stuff is on the shelf. Want to know if grapefruit juice interacts badly with your doctor-prescribed medication? Ask the pharmacist. Want to know where the nasal spray or enemas are? Ask me.

And finally - Ms. Busy-body - please stop telling me not to lift things or get down on the floor to get that one item way in the back of the bottom shelf. These things are part of my job. I am fully capable of doing my job. Lifting more than two shampoo bottles at once will not "damage" my "female parts" (seriously, she's always going on about how lifting "heavy" objects will damage my female parts) because I do not utilize my uterus, Fallopian tubes, vagina, or clitoris to lift anything (except perhaps the spirit of my spouse and myself, but that's none of your business). Sitting on a concrete and tile floor for 2.3 seconds (rather than kneeling on my bad knees) is not going to give me bleeding hemorrhoids. Also, no one gives a damn but you that us female staff are wearing "men's" shirts - you really go around noting which side of someone's shirt the buttons are on?

[Napoleon the Clown]

I'm going to dub the lady that's become a theme in your work posts "Lonely Old Lady" because of a combination of it sounding like she's probably lonely and that's why she's constantly there badgering people, and because it forms the acronym "LOL"...

LOL sort of reminds me of my grandma, in that she's very opinionated and doesn't hesitate to let you know just what her opinions are.

[Zaune]

Lifting more than two shampoo bottles at once will not "damage" my "female parts" (seriously, she's always going on about how lifting "heavy" objects will damage my female parts) because I do not utilize my uterus, Fallopian tubes, vagina, or clitoris to lift anything...

How would you even go about utilising them to...?

Oh, God I did not want that mental picture in my head!

[Enigma]

<snip> Oh, God I did not want that mental picture in my head!

It is done with a smile and a wink and with much gusto!

[Broomstick]

Lifting more than two shampoo bottles at once will not "damage" my "female parts" (seriously, she's always going on about how lifting "heavy" objects will damage my female parts) because I do not utilize my uterus, Fallopian tubes, vagina, or clitoris to lift anything...

How would you even go about utilising them to...?

Oh, God I did not want that mental picture in my head!

Yeah. Me, too. About once a fortnight. She's a regular.

She apparently now thinks we're on somewhat close terms, as she has taken to grasping my arm, patting my shoulder, etc. I do not like being touched by strangers, but I have to also be polite to customers no matter how batty.

On the other hand, if that's the worst dilemma I face in a day it's really not that bad a day....

[salm]

That fact that you work in a shop and actually don´t have to know the slightest little bit about the stuff they sell is actually more a disgrace to the stores requirements towards the staff than the customers expectations, imo.

[Tsyroc]

That fact that you work in a shop and actually don´t have to know the slightest little bit about the stuff they sell is actually more a disgrace to the stores requirements towards the staff than the customers expectations, imo.

As far as anything even remotely medically related, even the basic over the counter stuff, it is probably illegal for her to give an opinion or recommendation. It certainly is for me as a pharmacy technician. It sounds like they have a pharmacist on staff. He/she is the one people should be asking those sorts of questions.

Pharmacists love it when you show them stuff and then ask what you should take for it.


Since she works at WalMart, I think it would be difficult for anyone to have more than the slightest bit of knowledge about everything they sell. One of the drawbacks to "big box" carry everything under the sun stores when compared to specialty places. If you are lucky the people who work primarily in a specific area will have some specialized knowledge. That's generally been my experience. It won't approach the knowledge level of someone who works in a store that only does that one type of thing but they are usually good enough for what most people want.

[Broomstick]

That fact that you work in a shop and actually don´t have to know the slightest little bit about the stuff they sell is actually more a disgrace to the stores requirements towards the staff than the customers expectations, imo.

As far as anything even remotely medically related, even the basic over the counter stuff, it is probably illegal for her to give an opinion or recommendation.

^ This.

It would be practicing medicine without a license and opens up both my employer and myself to all sorts of liability.

In actual fact I probably do have more medical knowledge than the average layperson, but part of that knowledge is realizing I am not a doctor or pharmacist, know just enough to be dangerous, and have no business answering certain questions. Sure, I correctly guessed that nasty rash my spouse had was shingles that one time, but I still sent him off to the doctor for a real diagnosis.

Since she works at WalMart, I think it would be difficult for anyone to have more than the slightest bit of knowledge about everything they sell.

No, actually, my employer isn't WalMart. We like to think ourselves slightly upscale from Wally World (though admittedly not much) but I avoid naming my employer directly because it avoids potential problems for both parties.